All That's Left of You

Cherien Dabis's All That's Left of You is a sweeping, multigenerational Palestinian family drama that spans seven decades, from the 1948 Nakba to 2022. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 25, 2025, and has since become a critical touchstone, earning a perfect 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. Dabis not only wrote and directed but also stars as Hanan, the matriarch whose story anchors the narrative. The film follows the Hammad family through four distinct time periods, 1948 in Jaffa, 1978 and 1988 in Nablus, and 2022, tracing how trauma, displacement, and indignity are passed down through generations.

The cast is a family affair in more ways than one. Saleh Bakri plays adult Salim, while his real-life father Mohammad Bakri and brother Adam Bakri play older and younger Sharif, respectively. This three-generation casting mirrors the film's exploration of inherited pain and resilience. The story opens in 1988 with a shattering event involving teenage Noor, which sends ripples through the family's past and future. Dabis draws on her own family history, one audience member noted the depiction was almost 100% identical to her grandmother's account of fleeing Jaffa in 1948.

Produced across more than a dozen countries, including Germany, Cyprus, the US, and Qatar, with backing from the Red Sea Fund and the Doha Film Institute, the film has grossed $276,431 worldwide. Its nearly two-and-a-half-hour runtime allows for a deep, immersive look at how love and humanity persist amid relentless oppression. As Noor tells Salim in the film's closing scene: 'Your humanity is also your resistance.' [edit]

All That's Left of You opens in Nablus in 1988, during the First Intifada. Two teenage friends, Noor and Malek, are hanging out when Malek finds a spent bullet casing. Their curiosity leads them into the middle of a protest, where Israeli soldiers fire tear gas and then live ammunition. Noor turns down a street and is shot. The film then rolls back to 1948 in Jaffa, where Sharif and his wife Munira live a comfortable middle-class life with their children, including sensitive young Salim. As Zionist forces shell the city and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are expelled, Sharif refuses to abandon his home and orange groves. He sends his family to Nablus but stays behind to protect their land. After Jaffa falls, Sharif is captured, and his family fears the worst. A year later, he returns broken and barely able to stand, leaving young Salim feeling he has lost his father forever.

Thirty years later, in 1978, Sharif is a grandfather living with his youngest son Salim, Salim's pregnant wife Hanan, and their young children in a modest concrete home in Nablus. Sharif, now suffering from heart problems and early-onset dementia, insists aloud, 'We are from Jaffa, Palestine is our homeland,' and warns, 'Mark my word. They won't stop until they take all of Palestine.' The family manages peacefully despite the pressures of occupation, but the weight of the past lingers.

In 2022, the narrative catches up with the present. Sharif's youngest daughter is getting married, and his eldest son has moved to Amman. Salim, now a father, takes his eldest son Noor to collect medicine for Sharif's heart condition. Israeli soldiers stop them and force Salim to degrade himself and Hanan at gunpoint in front of Noor. This traumatic incident radicalizes Noor, who resents his father's perceived cowardice and grows closer to his grandfather's patriotic fervor. The film weaves these timelines together, exploring how fear and indignity are internalized and passed down. The title refers to what remains of a family, a people, and a homeland after decades of erasure, and the central question is whether one can choose love over hate in the face of relentless oppression.[edit]